Most people who walk away from a great job describe the night before as a sleepless one. Racing thoughts, second-guessing, a knot in the stomach. Lauren Dunkel Deluga slept perfectly. No restlessness, no anxiety, just peace. After nearly a decade as a top-billing recruiter at a Rochester firm, the founder of Relay Recruiting knew she was making the right call, even though everything about the setup told her to stay.
In a recent episode of Outside the Corporate Box, Lauren walked through what it actually takes to leave a sure thing and bet on yourself. The numbers she left behind were not small. A typical recruiter bills a client somewhere between $200,000 and $300,000. Lauren was regularly billing $550,000 and up toward $650,000. She had the income, the reputation, and the colleagues she now counts as close friends. And she still walked. The most honest thing she said about the decision was not about money or strategy. It was about grief.
"I named it grief because I left a great position, great income, great colleagues, a great reputation.
It wasn't 'thank God I got out of there.'
It was just truly betting on myself and knowing that there was something deeper."
— Lauren Dunkel Deluga
The Grief Nobody Names
Most founders call it excitement. A little scary, sure, but exciting. Lauren named it for what it actually was. When you leave something good, you do not just leave a job. You leave a routine, an identity, and a version of yourself you stopped having to think about. She felt it the first morning she went to the gym and realized she did not have to pack a bag, shower, and zip across the street to the office. She stood there asking, what do I do next.
The shift that changed everything was reframing the question. Not what am I running from, but what am I running toward. She left for a reason, and the job ahead was designing the life she actually wanted. Naming the grief did not make her weaker. It made her better at her work, because now she has real empathy for the candidates she places who are walking into the same uncertainty.
Golden Handcuffs and the Year of Silence
Lauren worked full commission, which meant the moment she stopped selling, she stopped earning. She had ideas to improve the business, train her team, and bring in AI to automate the administrative load, but none of that extra work paid her. Those were the small signs she kept ignoring because, by every outside measure, the job was great. That is the trap of golden handcuffs: benefits or pay good enough to keep you locked to a role you have outgrown.
There was one more cost. Lauren left under a non-solicitation agreement, which is different from a non-compete. She can still recruit, but for about a year she cannot reach out to the clients and candidates she built relationships with at her old firm. For the real estate agents listening, picture spending years building a CRM full of past clients, then being told you cannot call any of them for twelve months. Out of more than a hundred active relationships, she got the blessing to introduce a successor on roughly three. Walking away from the rest, with no goodbye, was the hardest part of the whole transition.
So why break the handcuffs? Because she got clear on her values first. Complete autonomy over her time, the freedom to work remotely, to travel, to take a walk at noon when the sun finally comes out in Rochester. To her, never having to ask for PTO was worth more than the bigger paycheck.
You’re Never Ready
Everyone around Lauren saw it before she did. Her husband had been encouraging her to go out on her own since COVID. Her friends and family said the same thing the moment she started planting the seed: about time, why haven’t you done this already. We can see potential in other people instantly, but imposter syndrome shows up the second the risk is our own money and our own name on the line.
So when the hosts asked what lie she told herself before becoming a founder, her answer was simple. She did not think she was ready. Everyone else knew she was. She finally just did it, and then figured it out as she went. The lesson she landed on: you are never ready, and waiting to feel ready is the thing that keeps most people stuck.
"Make it exist and perfect it from there."
— Lauren Dunkel Deluga
The Loneliness of Going Solo
This one surprised her. Lauren is an extrovert who spent years in an office full of people and stays deeply involved in her community, yet the early months felt isolating. Part of it was secrecy. She left in September but did not announce Relay Recruiting publicly until the end of December. For months she was building a website alone, drowning in decision fatigue, with no one from her old daily circle to share the new chapter with. The phone calls that used to come in just stopped.
She got through it the way she gets through hard things: by finding community on purpose and by creating challenges she could control. She leaned into professional networking groups and recruiting circles, which pulled her out of the bubble she had been in for years. And she signed up for an ultramarathon, less than a month out, because in a business where she admits she does not yet know marketing, finance, or sales, the race was something with a clear plan she could check off. A controllable goal while everything else felt uncertain.
A Life Built on Purpose
To understand why Lauren lives the way she does, you have to go back to 2017. Right before her wedding, her husband nearly died. He was in the ICU, and she was told to plan funeral arrangements. He was brought back. Every year since, they celebrate what they call his death day by doing something genuinely hard, often with friends, to celebrate being alive. That experience reset what matters to them.
The result is a life of intention. Last summer they took a camper van across the country with no itinerary, going wherever the wind took them. They have trekked across Peru for five days, hiked the Tour du Mont Blanc, and have the Dolomites planned for this summer. Ask Lauren what freedom feels like and she does not mention money. She talks about checking the weather app, finding the best window of the day, and getting outside with her dog, whatever Rochester throws at her.
If You’re Thinking About Making the Leap
Lauren’s story is not a how-to, but the throughline is full of advice worth following:
-
-
- Name what you are feeling. If it feels heavier than pure excitement, it might be grief. Call it that, and it loses its grip.
- Get clear on your values first. They decide whether your golden handcuffs are worth breaking or worth keeping.
- Stop waiting to feel ready. You never will. The people around you can probably already see it.
- Build community on purpose. Solo does not have to mean alone. Find your people through networking groups, the gym, or a board.
- Just make it exist. Stop overanalyzing and put the thing out into the world. You can perfect it from there.
-
The people who break the mold are rarely the ones who felt certain. They are the ones who named the fear, called it excitement, and ran toward it anyway. Lauren Dunkel Deluga walked away from a half-million-dollar book of business to design a life on her own terms, and she slept just fine the night before. That is what going outside the corporate box actually looks like.
About Lauren Dunkle Dlugosh:
Lauren Dunkle Dlugosh is the Founder and CEO of Relay Recruiting, an executive and professional search firm based in Rochester, New York. With nearly a decade of experience recruiting across nonprofit, higher education, manufacturing, energy, and the C-suite, she built her reputation as a top billing recruiter before launching independently. Her work combines deep relationship-based search with a forward-thinking approach to AI and workflow efficiency.
Connect with Lauren Dunkle Dlugosh
Guest LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/laurendunkle/
Website: https://www.relayrecruiting.com/
FOUNDING SPONSORS:
1: Wise Agent | https://wiseagent.com/jsquared – The all-in-one CRM that helps real estate agents manage contacts, automate follow-up, and grow their business.
2: Subi | https://www.oksubi.com/ – Your AI transaction genie. From contract to close, your work is my command.
3: The CE Shop | https://j2.theceshop.com/ Use the discount code JSquared for an additional 35% off